Why Aston Martin had 'fears' over Alonso's future

Aston Martin boss Mike Krack did fear Fernando Alonso not re-signing with the team beyond 2024, he has revealed.

Alonso's original two-year deal with Aston expired at the end of the 2024 season, with the two-time world champion keen to explore his options elsewhere in F1 - and also mulled over retirement.

He ultimately decided to stay for another two years, during which time the team will link up with Honda for 2026 for the new technical regulations that will be introduced.

Alonso was keen to decide his future as early as possible out of respect to the team he joined in 2023, with Krack admitting was worried the Spanish veteran would walk away.

"Yes, as he was not sure if he was going to continue racing," Krack told media when asked by RacingNews365 if he had doubts Alonso would re-sign.

"That was the doubt that made me not sleep so well, not that he would go somewhere else, because he was always very credible in his words, I trusted that and he stuck to it.

"So there was doubt, but we don't have this anymore."

As part of the new deal, Alonso will become the first 45-year-old to race in F1 since Graham Hill in 1975 during the 2026 season - with Krack praising the intelligence of his freshly-contracted driver.

"A driver with those qualities, you saw it in qualifying for the sprint [and grand prix in China], it is just incredible, the performance that he can get," he added.

"But also the race-craft, the race intelligence, we have seen it with the DRS in Suzuka, we saw it in Melbourne.

"We have someone here that is super-intelligent, has an overview of everything and I am quite sure that many people would like to sign him - maybe just not his former team [Alpine].

"It took a couple of days [to sort]. When you have the discussions, you can always work on the 'what if' so that you do not lose time when the decision is there, and [once he decided to stay], it was a matter of a couple of days."